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"Ned looked up at me for a moment, poignant apology already manifest in his eyes. The answer was right there in those eyes, but I still needed to hear the words, which were delivered hastily: 'Waylon, I'm not that way. The Bible forbids it. You know that very well.'

'You're telling me that you'd rather obey what some unaccredited, duplicitous book tells you than what your own heart does?'I asked.

Ned sighed and put a hand to his forehead. 'It's not like that. It's not so black and white. It's complicated.'

'Complicated how, Ned?' I persisted. 'It doesn't have to be complicated at all. Just tell me how you feel. Not what you think; how you feel.'

'I don't know how I feel, Waylon, and that's why it's complicated. I've never once in my life even considered the possibility of being with another guy, I don't even know what to think…'

'To feel,' I corrected. 'I'm asking you what you feel. Without hesitation, without thinking about what is right or what would happen or anything else. Just tell me how you feel, for God's sake,' I demanded, wondering if perhaps Ned really would tell me for the sake of the one that I assumed he obviously and unfortunately loved more than any living person. I hoped then that with his next words he would proved my assumption wrong.

He didn't.

'Waylon, you're the best friend I've ever had in my life, and I…do love you very much. In a passionately but purely platonic way. I don't know if it could be more than that or not…this whole notion of being attracted to girls and boys is just too much for me to even comprehend. I wonder if it could be true for me, but I don't want to think about it, and so I don't think about it. Ever. I make it a point to never cross that boundary, even in the seclusion of my own thoughts, because I know that in the end, I'm going to choose my faith,' Ned replied. 'If you and I were to run away to North Haverbrook together and do those things you said…I have to admit, the prospect does sound…intriguing. But our union wouldn't last forever, and that's a diddly-darn fact, Waylon. I'd lose you somewhere down the line and by then, I would have already lost my God. You may forgive me someday for my rejection of you, but I don't know if God could forgive me for my rejection of him. And that's why I don't contemplate it, I don't want to know how I feel, and I can't be what you want me to be.'

Umpteen retorts about the nature of God and the differences between such a being and the lie-proffering church immediately rushed to my mind, but I knew it was no use to speak them. Ned had made up his mind and nothing I could say would make him consider differently. He was a man of God and by the chuch's mentality, I was just short of Lucifer. I should've been thankful that he was even talking to me at all after what I did. So, I kept my longing lips shut and only nodded in reply.

As the lights went out once again, I lay in bed; my heart feeling like it had stopped and frozen inside the blackness of my soul, my body shaking although I was well-clad in the heavy blankets Ned had given me. For quite some time, I just lay there, thinking about Ned's words as they cycled assiduously in my mind.

I tried to close my eyes and think of something else, but all that came to me was the next day I was going to have to face at school, seeing Margery in the halls and avoiding her glance, sitting in the auditorium at lunch where Timothy couldn't find me, hearing the knife-like rumors that were now beginning to die down but only needed one off beam move—tidying up my desk too carefully, doodling hearts on my math paper, smiling at a guy the wrong way—to be resuscitated.

Before I could think twice, I was on a train to North Haverbrook. Running away yet again. As aware as I was of the cowardice that lived within me, I felt like I had no choice but to follow its lead. And then a thought hit me: I may have been a coward, but Ned was a greater one. He was too damn scared to listen to his heart, the one influence worth listening to. He very well could not have had any homoerotic tendencies whatsoever, but it was the fact that he refused to find out that infuriated me.

I guess the expression on my face as I thought about the night's event was one of apparent discontent, because soon I was startled by a lisped voice asking me what was bothering me. I turned to my left in surprise and saw a teenage boy sitting besides me on the train. I hadn't even noticed when he sat down I was so drowning in my thoughts.

Recollecting myself, I mumbled, 'Oh, it's nothing really. Just some problems with my friend. And family. And…' I looked at him and he looked genuinely interested in what I was saying. That was surely a different feeling. 'And…um…nothing. It's nothing. Thank you for your concern.'

'Anytime, my friend,' the boy said jovially. Then his countenance became sullen. 'You're not running away from home, are you?'

Taken aback and becoming defensive by his candor, I said, 'What business is it of yours?'

'Sorry, sorry, I was just wondering,' he replied.

I hesitated and then sighed, 'I'm sorry. It's been a rough day, and I'd rather not recount it. But yes, I am running away from home. There's nothing for me there.'

'Where are you running to?'

'North Haverbrook. Why?'

'That's where I'm going too,' he said with a wide grin. 'I'm John,' he said as he offered me his hand.

I hesitantly shook it. 'It's nice to meet you, John. I'm Waylon.'"